Rental vehicle for DH trip
- Thread starter DH Dad
- Start date
Check out the 15 passenger vans(Dodge,Ford) The third and fourth row seats are removable and there is plenty of room.
MiniVan is the way to go! You can remove whatever seats you don't want and this summer the 22miles per gallon that most minivans get will beat the 15 mpg that a Cargo van has. Guess it depends on how many folks you're bringing though, A big Van will fit a little more. If you look around rentals companies do promos on minivans almost all the time but, you have to look to see which companies have it going at the time. Dollar rental was always about the best prices I found. I think you have to call them btw to find out if they have a promotion like that. Used to be like 200 for a week, but that was a few years back.
I've been looking for a solution to the same question as well for my Whistler trip this summer. Van rental was going to be pretty expensive, so I kept searching.
I decided to buy a $200 small, light utility trailer and put four bikes on it and tow it behind my Impreza. Northern Tool and Harbor Freight sell them.
Also, I reeeeaaallly wanted to buy a diesel "short bus", as they can be had for cheap, but I don't have anywhere to park it and the HOA would probably have The Big One if a sh!tty short bus was eternally parked out front.
I decided to buy a $200 small, light utility trailer and put four bikes on it and tow it behind my Impreza. Northern Tool and Harbor Freight sell them.
Also, I reeeeaaallly wanted to buy a diesel "short bus", as they can be had for cheap, but I don't have anywhere to park it and the HOA would probably have The Big One if a sh!tty short bus was eternally parked out front.
You're going to put your bike's on a 200$ harbor freight trailer??!!! SKETCH!!!! if you've got 3 decent DH bike's that's like 15Gs back there, I wouldn't put that much worth of stuff on some POS that's going to fall apart.
If it's sketch, it will be returned before my bikes go on it. However, if you look up the specs on those trailers, they are rated for FAR HIGHER LOADS than 4 bikes. I'm not too worried about it.
Edit: Northern trailer: load rating of 1050 lbs.
rent this
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A Chevy cargo van (2 front seats, flat floor behind) works sweet. Most rental places have'em. 2 people can sleep in it comfortably with 2 bikes and gear. When you get places there's plenty of room to shuttle with locals. That's what we did for our PacNW trip. Flew to Seattle and rented the van. I liked it so much that I bought one and i'll be using it for a 2 week road trip to Nats this fall.
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Hot ticket for the peeps visiting me in whistler has been flying into the northwest, and renting a minivan. less hassle at the border than flying into vancouver, bikes inside and you can sleep in there too. Good gas mileage too. If you can find one (penske) the sprinter van is the ruler. I run one for my rig year round, work out of it for 5 months and travel out of it for the rest of the year. 25 mpg is better than the utah state car (subies)
U haul van. find the speedo cable and unplug it.
Then you can cruise with John Madden
Kntr, you are one squared away dude. That is really nice. One question: how much gear fits inside with 3 - 5 bikes inside?
You would be surprised how much stuff can fit in there. Its pretty full with 5 bikes inside, but you can still stack a lot of bags on the sides and small packs between bikes. Plenty of room for 5 guys and gear all inside... you just need to pack it tight and right. Ive tried a ton of vehicles over the years for Whistler and other bike trips. The van is by far the best rig I have found. If I drive like a grandpa I can get 19-20mpg on the hwy. Normally I get 16-17 for all around driving. It gets around awesome in the snow with the AWD too.
Custom Maxxis Minion tread stripe too.
I had a Chevy truck with a T2 mounted accross the bed that worked well, but I was always scared a bike would get stolen. Plus, if it rained the bikes were not protected like in the van.
The F150 was good but a pain to load bikes in with the topper. The high topper helped though.
The Jeep was awesome for getting to the top of the trails but the bikes took a beating from dust and rocks going up the dirt roads.
I still have this for local riding. Almost 280k miles and cost me $500. It still gets 35 mpg too.
The bronco did NOT haul enough bikes and was not good for long trips... fun though.
Ive tried a lot of vehicles and vans are the way to go. This was my other shuttle rig for awhile but couldnt get past the mini van thing. The big van is cooler IMO.
Custom Maxxis Minion tread stripe too.
I had a Chevy truck with a T2 mounted accross the bed that worked well, but I was always scared a bike would get stolen. Plus, if it rained the bikes were not protected like in the van.
The F150 was good but a pain to load bikes in with the topper. The high topper helped though.
The Jeep was awesome for getting to the top of the trails but the bikes took a beating from dust and rocks going up the dirt roads.
I still have this for local riding. Almost 280k miles and cost me $500. It still gets 35 mpg too.
The bronco did NOT haul enough bikes and was not good for long trips... fun though.
Ive tried a lot of vehicles and vans are the way to go. This was my other shuttle rig for awhile but couldnt get past the mini van thing. The big van is cooler IMO.
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Kntr has the right idea! My next wife-mobile for sure!
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